Pilot of Helicopter in Famous Saigon Evacuation Photo Dead at 88

May 28, 2021 9:40pm

The above photo was taken on September 16, 2015 while I was on the rooftop of the apartment building at 22 Lý Tự Trọng Street (formerly 22 Gia Long Street) in Saigon when Harry Simons and I were in Vietnam doing research for our radio documentary. That's the building in the famous UPI photograph depicting an Air America (run by the CIA) Huey helicopter evacuating Americans and South Vietnamese from the rooftop on April 29, 1975 one day before the Fall of Saigon.

Many people mistakenly believe that was the rooftop of the American Embassy. It was not. Although there were also helo evacuations from the rooftop of the American Embassy a few blocks away, this building was an apartment building used by the CIA's Deputy Station Chief. The Huey was atop the building's elevator shaft.

The pilot of that helicopter, Bob Caron, died in a car wreck two days ago. He was 88 years old. The story about Caron's death is at https://www.pnj.com/story/news/2021/05/28/bob-caron-pilot-iconic-vietnam-war-photo-dies-traffic-accident/7487501002/

If you're interested in how the Americans in Saigon were secretly, yet VERY publicly, alerted that they needed to immediately evacuate in April 1975, it is described at the conclusion of "AFVN: The GI's Companion," the radio documentary Harry Simons and I produced. It is archived online at http://rockradioscrapbook.ca/afvn.html. The evacuation story begins at the 1:53:22 point in Episode 5.

Rest in peace, Bob Caron.